Apfel-Pfannkuchen

AKA Apple Pancakes.

My husbands favorite german dish! 

He had been asking  his mom to make it, so last week she did. 

And she taught me how too :) 

It's fairly simple!

However  I have no measurements, because she just makes it. 

Depending on how many you are making you would add more eggs and milk.

The goal is to make a batter that looks like this: 

Then heat some oil in a frying pan 

add some apples 

pour on the batter 

Cook until it's a beautiful brown and will with-hold a flip

Flip & cook 

Plate

Make more 

Eat! 

Of course serve HOT! 

The boys like to add sugar on top. 

Then it's kinda like a funnel cake. Kinda. 

You can mix it up and add anything to the pancake you want (instead of apples) it will just have a different name ;) 

The next day we had them with bacon. 

Sometimes she makes them really thin, then we roll them up with butter lettuce and some kind of dressing on the lettuce. 

So if you want some, come over and I'll make my first batch by myself :) 

Hormone Problems

Today I need to just do a small vent.
On my to do list for blogs is, the reveal, cloth diapers and other happenings.
 But for today I need to be vulnerable, selfish and pregnant.

Some days things just seem to get to me more. To really get under my skin more than normal. Today seems to be one of those days. I think, in my own view of my world, I haven't had too many days like this, so that's good for C :)

Today, pants don't fit.
I don't have enough pants.
Long sleeve warm shirts are not long enough for my enormous belly.
    (I can usually be creative in this department but apparently hormones prevent that and just cause break        downs.)
I sneezed and had to change out of my last clean maternity pants into sweat pants that just happen to still fit.

I have become a mouth breather and it is the worse at night, thus causing NO Sleep.Which seems to have caught up with me today. Thus causing a hormonal Kelsey to be super pleasurable.
My poor sweet husband who can sleep through EVERYTHING is also being kept up by my tossing and turning. Sorry boo!

We are also fostering a 1yr old dog, who is super sweet, but not quite trained to all the Haltermann house rules, like chasing the cat's is a no no, esp when a pregnant woman is trying to eat breakfast, and the cat runs up the stairs to a hallway with no where to go, and the pregnant woman has to run up said stairs ,[ which she can barely WALK up w/o loosing her breath], to save the cat! 
 Now the cats don't want to go outside at all, and we had to put a litter box inside. (Only after finding the rug they turned into their own pee spot w/o our knowledge! )
Oh and Abby taught the new dog how to go swimming in the fish pond....when its 27* outside!!!!

Picture now all of this happening in the a 1-2hr span while in trying to get ready to go to work and do normal things like switch out laundry, eat breakfast , feed all animals, do hair and makeup, pick up the living room & kitchen after the nightly tornado called C tears through it. Then picture my usually smiling face turned into something that the dogs don't even want to mess with anymore. And re-doing makeup, specifically in the eye region.


Ok enough about my morning hormone breakdown!
Let's be grateful for what we have.

***A healthy baby boy!
***A understanding and flexible place of work!
***A husband who somehow can still put up with me and make me smile!
***A pregnancy that I have been blessed with
***A pregnancy that has been fairly easy going
***A reliable car to get to and from work.
***Pet's who are loving and despite my breakdowns still come up to me to show love and comfort.
***Friends who I'm in contact daily who show me love and put me in my place when I get too hormonal

Thanks for reading my rant :) Please know how thankful for this sweet baby I am,  I really am and I know I am blessed. I will take all that comes with it just to get to meet and hold him!

20 Weeks (5 months)

Almost to 20 weeks (on Friday) , which is the half way mark.
Which is TERRIFYING and EXCITING at the same time!

                                                                           18 weeks

I just wanted to share some of the good, the bad and the ugly of things up to this point.
(I promise more good than anything!! )

Everyone has questions for a new mom.
 "how are you feeling?"
"how did you tell everyone?"
"any crazy cravings"
"what names have you picked out?"

soooooo
To start off, we found out pretty early, like right at 4 weeks, which is crazy bc in reality the little thing was only 2 weeks old and just a speck of dust in my body.
I had to go to the DR right off (which confirmed the two lines) because I am A- blood type which requires me to get a shot so my body accepts my baby and it's blood and doesn't decide other wise, ALSO so my body would accept more babies in the future. Of course that is the lamens summery of events, but you get the just :)

                                                          8 weeks. This is also how we told my Brother in law.

It was so hard not to run around telling everyone!
Like really hard!
But we did get to tell our families :)

I gave my mom a pair of big Ol' granny panties and made her figure out why I would have given her nude panties that go up to her bellie button... Watching her figure it out was very so funny! At first she was offended, then confused and finally all the dots connected. I am evil and laughed the whole time :)

For C's parents we were able to casually work it into a conversation, which was really funny to. His grandparents are coming to stay this summer, so we just mentioned that they should move their dates to ensure that they will be here in June. This was also entertaining to watch the thought process happen.
Really, am I evil??  ;)

Overall I have really been blessed to feel pretty good.
I had some sickness in weeks 6-12. Mostly in the mornings but sometimes it lasted all day.
And some times I would just feel crappy. Un-comfortable. But I know other women who have (had)  it way worse! Thus, I won't complain to much.
I was able to keep going by keeping food in my belly. I really noticed an increase of crapyness when I had an empty stomach. (and I sleep, a lot.)

I have good energy levels now too which is really nice!
We lived in an un-decorated house until the end of November when my mom came over and helped me make it feel more homely :)

Smells!! Oh smells... I have always had a really good sense of smell(when I don't have allergies)    which became even more magnified with pregnancy. Police departments could seriously pay me to sniff out drugs or bombs money.
You know how all houses have a certain smell that you associate with them? Like your grandmas house or a childhood best friend.And they would always smell like that to you.
Well, our new house came with its own smell. It didn't stink. But I hated it and I was apparently the only one who could smell it! When I traveled out of town I could smell it on my clothes and I would gag!
I had scentsy and candles EVERYWHERE!
Thank the lord it has gone away! Or I have gotten used to it. Or I lost all sense of smell....

                      8 weeks. I think I was just bloated here. This was when I could "smell" our house.

FOOD. yummm food..
Well yum to some foods... Some of my tastes have changed a little, my GAG reflex has really increased, and sometimes I just have no control over it..
Like when brushing my teeth.
Or smelling fried food.
Or trying a new food that I'm unsure about....
Anyway.
I really haven't noticed a super increase in appetite, and I try to keep it that way. I eat when I need to , don't worry!!!
No crazy cravings or food combos yet. With the exception of having the ability to eat crunch tacos everyday if I needed to.
Most other cravings are of the "seefood" variety, and come from seeing something or hearing about something and then I HAVE to HAVE IT NOW! Example: a cokefloat vs rootbeer float debate on Facebook,  which  instigated stopping by the store for rootbeer and ice cream, immediately.

Oh yeah how could I forget!
I pee alot.
ALOT!
Night time is the worse! I guess the little bugger sits right on my bladder when I lay down, so I get up at least once every two hours :( The most disappointing part is when I only pee a little, but it feels like I have a tank full. (hahaha ;) )

Buck or Doe??? Nine days until you will know!
We find out tomorrow, but we will tell everyone next week.
Maybe you will be lucky and get a name too.
Maybe not.
We have not decided if we will share that yet ...

Cupcakes and Diapers

My girlfriends and I went on a recent adventure - to further my research on cloth diapers . 

(more to come on that soon. hold you opinion) 

In order to keep spirits up, I brought them to my favorite bakery.

This place is plucked from my dreams! 

I mean for real!! Does it get any cuter than this??? 

And they have chalk board walls everywhere! 

And super cute trinkets you can buy 

But the treats!!! SOOOO CUTE AND  YUMMY

We decided on these 3 (full size) for this trip. 

We were not disappointed :) 

Have you heard of PicMonkey?

This is for all my Blogger friends and mommies too:

Yes I realize I may be behind on this, so forgive me. But It's still a really cool online (FREE) editing program. 

Yes, I know some of the super cool folks have and know how to use Photoshop, but thats too advanced for me.

 PicMonkey is very user friendly! 

It's perfect for bloggers and picture projects for all my new mommie friends

Mommies can make cards like below

This is my god-daughter.Isn't she PRECIOUS!!

See obviously I need to keep practicing but you get the just.....

Here is the clickable link :) 

Free Day of Royal Membership

Let me know your thoughts on this program and esp if you try it out, tell me what you think :) 

Ringing it in

Happy New Years to All!
 I hope everyone had a blast celebrating. Weather you fell asleep at 10 with your love, stayed up until 5am rocking and rolling it or pushed yourself to watch the ball drop then said peace out 2013 .

We rung in the new year in a small but fun little get-together at our casa with all the Haltermanns. C had some cousins in town from Germany, so we wanted to show them some Texas fun. Sadly I have very few pics to show  : ( But I do want to share some of our fun, so I'll just use the links from the ideas I used or pics that do justice :)

Portioning is not my strong suite when it comes to planning food for groups of people. I ALWAYS make too much food..... Including too many appetizers. Oh well the boys always eat it late at night.
The boys wanted to fry some chickens and have french fries, so I had to balance it out with grilled veggies.
They use a big ass pot and heat it up over the propane burner. It makes the BEST chicken! We had 8 individual small chickens, we ate 5. (See I told you too much food)

photo credit;  http://x111.com/blog/commsie/page/5/

It's not breaded or anything. We just season it and cook it, and it comes out so nice and juicy! 

Fries are done the same way except we like to eat them with fondor,  curry ketchup and mayo. (yes it's a German thing) 

Next time you come over we will share this awesome-ness with you! You must try it at least once :) 

PS Only C and I ate the veggies.. waaa waaa

http://www.gimmesomeoven.com/easy-grilled-vegetables/

After dinner we played Pictionary. I printed words from The Game Gal  just to make my life a little easier :) 

I printed the New Years Eve list, and a list from Easy, Medium, Hard and Movies as back up. I loved that I didn't have to spend brain power on thinking of words bc the Baby is stealing all my brain power .

 Thanks Game Gal! And because I'm so awesome, I translated the New Years words in German too. 

I was really proud of everyone wanting to play and having AND keeping a good attitude! If you have ever played games with us you know how competitive C and I can be with each other, so it's best if we are on the same team. 

During the game I served Champagne Jello shots and I got the recipe here from That's So Michelle. 

They were a huge hit! Even with the guys! 

I didn't cut them into hearts, I just did squares and sparkle sugar on top. 

After a long stint of game playing, the boys were itching to blow stuff up so we moved outside. 

While the girls stood at what we though was a safe distance (soon to be proven wrong), the boys decided to forget any common sense they had - as well as any knowledge on safety- and held the bottle rockets in their hands to shoot off.  Two out of three of them burned their hands!! One of which was big papa bear and he actually burned through the gloves he was wearing!! (but that's what saved his hand from being much worse) Needless the one German boy didn't even want to try to shoot anything off.... 

They redeemed them selves when it was time for the big artillery shells. By the time midnight rolled around it was time for the big finale and they had it down! 

After I served champagne and everyone said their wish and got their kiss we watched at they shot 6 artillery at a time up into the perfect cloudless sky! It was awesome. 

While we were outside, Abby was inside eating the remaining 3 chickens.. SIGH. She was fine, luckily! 

No Haltermann night/party would be complete with out S'MORES! 

So to wrap up the evening we stood around the bon fire and taught the Germans how to roast S'mores. 

(my image) 

C and I aren't big on making resolutions. 

BUT I do want to become better at taking pictures! Remembering to take them as well as the quality of image I can create. I've been working on it this past year, and esp with the baby coming I need to get better about remembering to actually take pictures! :) 

Tschüss

Two little lines

Now that the cat is out of the bag I can feel free to share my adventure with everyone:)

Sorry for the absence since October but aside from being super lethargic, I'm talking "I have mono-no energy" type of tired. All I have wanted to do is share about our changing lives.

SO here is the update :
(Overview)

We moved everything into the house on Oct. 5, with 4 bakery trucks and lots of big guy help.

I found out the morning of Oct 6!!!!! With a house full of 5 grown men(not counting the hubbs) and C's parents on their way over for their Birthday cake and coffee!

(The details)

  Epiphany: No wonder I was breathing so hard going up and down the stairs! I remember thinking, " there is no way I am this out of shape! I take spin 2 days a week and body pump the other 2 days and I make mom lift weights with me!? WTH?? And why are my boobs hurting so much when I bounce up and down the stairs??" 

So since my nails we growing strangely long and I was having issues with the stairs I decided to just see if anything was out of the ordinary.

WELP Two little pink lines told me what was going on. SURPRISE!! :)

My poor hubby was then thrown soo off course when he walked into the bathroom to take care of
 man morning duties,
still in zombie mode,
 right after waking up,
to a scene of me being really, really weird.
And of course I couldn't refrain from keeping it from him- even though I wanted to be all cute and make pancakes or make a shirt for Abby- that plan just wouldn't work with a million guests staying in your house.

C 's reaction was the best!
His mouth dropped open, he looked confused but immediately came to me and gave the best hug and kisses and was actually excited.He kept saying "I'm going to be a dad?! I'm going to be a dad." I really didn't know what to expect from my macho man's man, and especially because everything was happening so fast, but,
that. was. awesome!

The hardest part was now going to be keeping it to ourselves until it was time to share.....

more to come soon.

Tschüss

City Luxuries

So we moved to the country.

Canyon Lake to be exact.
 Before you all go crazy with summertime plans and want to bring your boats and move in with us, you should know that we are not on the Lake part of Canyon Lake. 

We are in the boondocks part of Canyon Lake. 

The part where if it rains we will be flooded in because of low water crossings. (and this week this has happened)  

The part where you can shoot guns and no one cares. 

The part where you have to plan grocery shopping because HEB is not 7 min. away, Brookshire is but it has crazy expensive prices! 

Cable and internet options were Satellite. 

We have our own well and our own septic. 

 The country.

And with country territory comes "critters", of ALL kinds.

Like 

This GIANT AMAZON size  (aka Texas Giant) Centipede 

The black "antennae" at the top are not antennae at all!! Those are it's stingers.

And this LONG ribbon / garden / garner snake 

and these..... 

I get no sympathy just a "welcome to the country " answer.. 

Well there I have it. Welcome to the country. Get used to it! I can get used to it as long as these things are NOT  in my house. 

No country life is complete with out other animal adventures. Well let me re-phrase that to no Haltermann day is complete with out an animal adventure. 

I had to keep the cats in the garage for a few days to get used to the new house and smells etc. I feed them wet food so they would still love me after the traumatic adventure of taking them (all 3 at the same time) in the car for 45min... 

During their garage stay Hauss did this.

 Twice. I managed to coax him down the first time, but I didn't close the attic door and the next time he was up there for HOURS.

BC did this during the night 

And it dried. 

So now her poor legs are bald. 

And in the spotlight again is Hauss and his height defying obsession. 

He is up there everyday when I get home, and won't come down the same way he went up so I have to go let him in on the 2nd floor patio. 

All this aside, I do love it. C is living his dream! He builds a fire in his fire pit every night, and we leave the windows and doors open and hear nothing! We feed the deer and are making everything our "own" :) 

Until next time. 

Tschüss

How Abby Sleeps 2

I know everyone wants to hear about the new house but it will have to wait until next week. We are coo coo busy and I would like to take pics after we settle :) 

So for the time being please entertain yourselves with a post on 

"How Abby Sleeps"

This week the dog bed made a better pillow than a bed. 

I would also like to compile a list of things I say to Abby that I never thought would be coming out of my mouth. Maybe I will alternate between them both. 

I should have recorded the things kids said and/ or wrote to me while I was teaching! Those were priceless! I tell my mother all the time that she should make a book since she has been teaching way longer than I ever did!! 

Do any of y'all have funny stories of things you said to a child or pet, or things your child (or pet) said to you? Please share!! :) 

Tschüss

baking with lizards

Maybe the title is a little deceiving, it should say Baking AND Lizards. I did not bake a lizard. But I did think the title would catch your attention. Sorry for the deception ;)

The baking part first then the lizard:

Just like every other girl in the world, we all know that September means PUMPKIN time. Pumpkin everything! Coffee, cookies, cake, hand soap, candles, pancakes, roasted seeds etc, etc, etc. And I LOVE it!!

So in true fashion it was time to try a  new PUMPKIN recipe. 

Guess where I found one??!! Yep, Pinterest! BUT it was a Martha Stewart Recipe, so that makes it ok.

Found here: Pumpkin Woopie Pies 

I love woopie pies and I love pumpkin so how perfect is the recipe! 

I chilled the Pumpkin (the classic Libby's from a can ) 

Mixed the dry ingredients

Started mixing the pumpkin and all other "wet" ingredients and realized I was out of vegetable oil! 

What the heck! :( 

Well we have plenty of olive oil! but that has a unique flavor, so I'm not going to use that.

I know of a few other things you can use instead of oil: 

• butter (gotta save for the icing)  
• applesauce  ( don't have any) 
• bananas (too strong of a flavor and will clash with pumpkin) 
•  pumpkin (well that won't help! ) 
• yogurt (option 1)
• coconut oil (option 2) 

I bought coconut oil a while back with the intentions of incorporating it more into our diet and maybe even my skin care. So perfect time to try it out, right!? It replaces cup for cup.

After slowly adding all the dry mix to the "wet" mix, the dough started to get pretty thick and the more I stirred the thicker it became... (yes, ahhh ohhh )

As I scooped the dough onto the backing sheet I remember thinking "well these better flatten out once they bake, my chocolate chip cookies always do" 

In the meantime I made my famous cream cheese icing, which happens to be pretty similar to Martha Stewart's. 

It turned out normal (and perfect). 

The cookies are done baking and cooling, lets just flash forward to the finished product shall we? 

Yeah....... they are supposed to look like this: 

So I learned: 

1. Coconut oil does NOT replace cup for cup, probably needed more 
2. I should have know to add something when it became so think
3. Maybe Martha doesn't have the best recipe for pumpkin woopie pies 
4. I might be smitten for #3

They tasted good, but I'm going to try another recipe soon. And they will look like the ones above! I just know it! 

Now the lizard story.

As I was getting ready to leave this morning my cat Hauss (aka Hoss) was pawing at the carpet by a chair in my room. Of course I yelled at him to quit bc he could mess up the carpet. Stubborn little guy didn't listen so I went over to see what he was trying to get, I figured it was probably a little toy mouse or treat. By the time I got to the chair Hauss was completely under the chair!!??  I looked under the chair and couldn't see anything, so naturally I turn on the flash light on my phone and : 

THIS  BIG @$$ LIZARD WAS UNDER THE CHAIR!! 

You can imagine the screams and words that came out of my mouth.

So I ran away and panicked!

Did I mention that I was home alone? Well I was, and C was at his moms. I proceeded to call him several times but he didn't answer. I called my mom next, I knew she couldn't come help me but I was freaking out. My mom laughed a bit then told me to go get a shovel and take it out side bc I couldn't leave it there all day. Luckily C called back at that moment, and I thought "I'm SAVED".

 But I wasn't.

He was still asleep and not coming to my rescue. 

He said to be grateful that it was there because it eats spiders and scorpions.

 He said it wasn't a Komodo Dragon. 

So I sent him a picture! 

Apparently it's a Swift Fence (Hauss got his tail) 

Also, apparently, it was all up to me now to take care of this creepy huge lizard ALL by myself.

Because if not, by the time I got home it could be in one of my bags or in my bed and then we would have a health emergency on our hands. 

After a A LOT of prep talk to myself I did my best to man up. 

And he lives happily outside for the rest of his life. Or until Hauss finds him again. Hopefully he will be more swift now. 

I think I deserve a new pair of shoes. 

Tschüss